The War of Independence, partition and the Treaty
Sinn Féin declares independence and the IRA fights a guerrilla war; Ireland is partitioned, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty creates the Irish Free State.
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
- The Dead of the Irish Revolution — Eunan O'Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin, Yale University Press (2020)
On 21 January 1919, the Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 refused to go to Westminster and met in Dublin’s Mansion House as Dáil Éireann, the parliament of a declared Irish Republic. The same day, Volunteers at Soloheadbeg in Tipperary shot dead two policemen guarding explosives, an act often taken as the start of the war.
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
A guerrilla war
The Volunteers, now increasingly called the Irish Republican Army (IRA), fought a campaign of ambushes, attacks on police barracks and assassinations, while the underground Dáil ran its own courts and collected taxes. Michael Collins, as director of intelligence and minister for finance, built a network that crippled British intelligence in Dublin.
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
- Collins, Michael — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
The war was brutal on all sides. The IRA killed suspected informers, some of them Protestants or ex-servicemen, and in the north-east there was savage sectarian violence, especially in Belfast. A major study of the dead counts about 2,100 deaths in the war of 1919–21.
- The Dead of the Irish Revolution — Eunan O'Halpin and Daithí Ó Corráin, Yale University Press (2020)
- Irish Civil War Fatalities Project: Research Findings — Andy Bielenberg and John Dorney, University College Cork
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
Partition
While the war went on, Westminster passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which created two home-rule parliaments. Northern Ireland, six of the nine Ulster counties, chosen to give unionists a secure majority of about two-thirds, opened its parliament in June 1921. The southern parliament never really functioned.
- Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800–2000 — Alvin Jackson, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (2003)
- Northern Ireland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
The Treaty
A truce came on 11 July 1921. Negotiators led by Arthur Griffith and Collins signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London on 6 December 1921. It created the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth like Canada, with an oath of fidelity to the king. Northern Ireland could, and did, opt out, and a Boundary Commission was to review the border.
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
- Collins, Michael — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
Collins argued it gave “the freedom to achieve freedom”. De Valera, president of the Dáil, who had stayed in Dublin, rejected it as a betrayal of the Republic, objecting above all to the oath. On 7 January 1922 the Dáil approved the Treaty by 64 votes to 57. The split ran through families, friendships and the IRA itself, and within six months it became a civil war.
- Collins, Michael — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- de Valera, Éamon — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
A democratic mandate, the 1918 election, was met with repression, and a people's guerrilla war forced the world's largest empire to negotiate. Partition was imposed against the will of most Irish people.
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
Northern Ireland was the only way to protect a British, Protestant community from rule by a Catholic, nationalist Dublin, and its creation was a legitimate act of self-determination.
- Home Rule: An Irish History, 1800–2000 — Alvin Jackson, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (2003)
- Northern Ireland — Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica
A campaign of "murder" by a minority that had to be suppressed, until the cost and international criticism led Lloyd George to seek a settlement that kept Ireland in the Empire.
- The Republic: The Fight for Irish Independence, 1918–1923 — Charles Townshend, Allen Lane (2013)
- The Irish War of Independence — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (2002)
Why it matters today
These three years created both of today's jurisdictions on the island: Northern Ireland, which stayed in the UK, and the state that became the Republic of Ireland. The split over the Treaty shaped the two main parties of the Republic, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, for a century.